Weekly Blog

I think I’ll start this week off with saying that I’m not sure I have emotionally recovered from last Monday’s WOD! So many 400m runs.....This week will start off much different! We’ll see some more running this week and then next Monday we have Murph in Wash Park starting at 7AM!!! Can’t wait to see you all get after it and honor our fallen heroes.

Here’s what we will be up to this week:

MONDAY:

We are going to start the week going heavy. All the back squats coming your way! Move well, get heavy, and most of all have fun! No huffing and puffing on this one, just some good old fashioned grit and determination to do a little more than you think you can!

TUESDAY:

This is our long day this week and will be more of a mental challenge than anything. Bring your running shoes, some mental toughness, and have some fun! All the cardio coming at ya!

WEDNESDAY:

This is an upper body intensive gymnastics workout. Keep moving and minimize rest and NO BUTTERFLY PULL UPS this time! We’ll have a little after bash of some accessory pulling movements then call it a day!

THURSDAY:

This one will burn!!! Two weighlifting movements, one extremely lightweight and one on the heavier side for most! Fight to be unbroken on this one and silence that little voice in your head that tells you to stop and rest!

FRIDAY:

We’ll finish off the work week with some heavy lifting followed by a very short conditioning piece that will have you ready for a couple rest days before MURPH!!!!

SATURDAY:

Teams of 3 for a little cardio, weighlifting, and a little more cardio. The work will be shared so you will have time to rest however your team decides is best! Have fun with this bad boy!

Happy Mother’s Day to all of our rockstar Moms!!!! We hope you had an amazing weekend. There is no way a singular day can possibly be enough to show how much you mean to your families, but hey at least you didn’t have to do any burpees today!!!

Special congratulations to two of our 5:30AM crew, Danny and Erica, who got married this weekend. I know they have impacted me and helped make the morning class something really special. All of us at Per Ignem and The Phoenix wish you two years and years of health and happiness on your journey. We are fortunate to be a part of the ride!

Here is what you can expect to see this week in the gym! It’s going to be a challenging week as always, but one that will certainly reward you with opportunities to show off your progress!

MONDAY:

Starting the week out with a bang! This long EMOM was recently featured on CrossFit.com and is sure to burn off all of the indulgences from the holiday weekend!!! A little running and gymnastics will do the trick!

TUESDAY:

This workout has a classic CrossFit feel pairing an olympic lift with a gymnastics movement. The reps go down each round, but the intensity stays high! You should be down for the count for a few minutes after this one!

WEDNESDAY:

Here we have our “heavy day” from the week with a variation of a conventional deadlift. The goal here is to hit a new max on this variation and then we will finish the class with some core work.

THURSDAY:

Thursday brings a mid-length EMOM where the goal is to max out your reps each minute. There is rest built in to this workout so you veterans know what that means!!!! This one will burn and features a barbell lift, a gymnastics movement, and a cardio component.

FRIDAY:

To finish out the week we have another couplet of a gymnastics movement and a weightlifting movement. The rep scheme is sadistic and I love it. 10-8-6-4-2-4-6-8-10. Oh and you should know there may be a jump rope involved as well....

This is going to be an amazing week and we are here to help you all the way!!! Our transition over to ZenPlanner is going well and more of you will be asked to set up a new account and resubmit your payment information this week. If it is possible a voided check and ACH payment would be greatly appreciated as it will save us up to $350 each month in credit card processing fees. This money can go a long ways to help one of our Phoenix team members on their path to recovery and a healthier life!

Last thing!!! Tell your friends how much you love Per Ignem! If they join, we will give you a free month for helping us grow our tribe of super fit, amazing people, that will soon dominate the world! Ok, we’ll start with Denver, but the world is within reach with your help. Have a great week guys! Thank you again for allowing us to be part of your lives. You make coming to work each day an absolute pleasure!

I hope you all had a great weekend and rested up after a heavy week. This week will be more about conditioning early in the week and then we will get the barbell out towards the end of the week. Here is a look at what’s coming your way!!! It’s going to be a really fun one!

Monday:

This workout combines some running (short distance!), weightlifting, and gymnastics movements. Look for the workout to take 10-15 min to complete if scaled appropriately. The two gymnastics movements are low volume, but higher in skill. This is a burner, but will require a bit of pacing to get through the gymnastics movements!

Tuesday:

Here we have a single round workout with 3 movements, all of which are sure to get the heart and lungs on fire!!! One of the movements will address symmetry between your left and right arm while putting a high demand on core strength under fatigue. Take the time during this movement to work on better breathing economy. This is one of those workouts that looks benign, but will leave you gasping for air!

Wednesday:

This workout takes a classic benchmark and splits it in to 3- 8 minute intervals. It is all bodyweight movements and each round should be an all out sprint! If you’re doing Murph with us, be sure to come for this workout!

Thursday:

Time to get out the bar and go heavy for time! This workout is a couplet that most will have to scale. I’ll provide a time range and intent before class and adjust the load on the bar to complete this appropriately. The stimulus is the prescription, weights are just a suggestion to elicit the desired response from your body. That applies to every workout we do, but especially today!

Friday:

Heavy day! Time to put some weight overhead! No metcon today as we are going to focus on strength development and finish the day with a core circuit because SUMMER IS COMING!

Can’t wait to see you guys crush another week. If you have not downloaded the ZenPlanner app on your phone yet, please do. This is the new membership management software we are going to be using moving forward. As your memberships come due this month I’ll be setting up your new accounts. This system is much better and easier for all to use. Just another way we are working hard to improve your experience at Per Ignem!!!

I am overwhelmed with pride in your efforts last week with some tough tests. How about those burpees in Filthy Fifty!!! To all who came and ran the 5k on Monday to start the week, THANK YOU! I know that isn’t a fun workout for most, it definitely wasn’t fun for me, but it is an important test and an important part of your health and wellness, GREAT JOB.

This week brings on a few days of a heavy lift with a short conditioning piece afterwards. Other days will be longer conditioning workouts. The theme for each day and the intent are as follows:

Monday: Overhead Squats with a 3 second pause! Yep, I said it!!! The idea here is to develop your overhead squat and load up for those with good technique. After the heavy section is done we are going to blast our bodies head to toe with some OHS conditioning!

Tuesday: Long conditioning fight with some bursts of strength in the form of cleans thrown in. Your heart will be jumping out of your chest and the challenge is to just keep moving and don’t let yourself rest.

Wednesday: Sean Baker’s dream day!!!! Get out the benches and bro out! We’ll partner up and spot one another to be safe and then hit a nice little conditioning piece after that will be sure to leave you wondering what happened. The interval nature of this workout is designed to maximize your intensity.

Thursday: Long EMOM to develop stamina. You should have about 15-20 seconds of rest each minute. Some olympic weightlifting, gymnastics, and cardio all in one!!!

Friday: 7 rep max back squats!!! Then once you’re all walking like baby deer we will hit about a 6-8 minute couplet to send you in to your weekend!!!

Saturday: Partner wod! Gonna be a test of gutting out some pain, but have fun with the shared suffereing between you and your partner!!! Should take about 20 min and no team should go beyond 25 min. Dumbbells, rowers, burpees, and running!!! OH MY!!!!

On another note we will be migrating over to ZenPlanner for our membership management software. I have used this in the past at other gyms and think you will find it much more functional and easy to use. Once we get switched over I will ask that you start to RSVP for class as some of our classes are beginning to get crowded. For safety’s sake and to maintain a proper coach to athlete ratio, classes will be capped at 12 athletes and a couple wait list spots.

We are also going to add a couple of yoga classes each week in the evening that will be included in your membership if you are unlimited and will count as a separate class if you have a 12x per month membership. So if you check in for a 6:30PM CrossFit, you will have to use another class check-in for 7:30 PM yoga. I hope many of you take advantage of these classes to further improve your flexibility and recovery. Yoga is a great discipline for mental and physical restoration!!!

This week is a testing week for us. We will start Monday off with an aerobic conditioning test. While these days are not the most fun, they are important to a well rounded base of fitness. Attendance on these days is low, but we will not avoid programming because they are so important. I encourage you all to grab your headphones and fanny packs, get in the gym and record a time against which we can track your progress!

Tuesday brings us a classic benchmark couplet. With this we are testing your work capacity between a moderate weight olympic lift and a gymnastics movement. With a pulling and pushing movement there is little muscular interference so the intensity remains high!!!!

Wednesday we test a mid time range benchmark with multiple movements. The time makes this a combination of aerobic and aneraobic work and the pure chaos of this WOD is always fun.

Thursday brings a test of overhead stamina at a moderate to heavy load. The weights increase as the workout goes on and challenges you mentally as a result!

Finally on Friday we will test maxes in an upper body and lower body lift!!! The day you have all been waiting for lol.

Each day this week is important and I hope to see you all each day. Please log all your scores in SugarWOD and congratulate others in the community. Supporting one another daily is important to lasting success and continued progress.

***HOUSEKEEPING NOTES:

-Only coaches should ever be behind the desk. If you need something from behind the desk please ask a staff member to help you.

-Please do your best to be on time for class. I don’t want to start burpee penalties or anything like that. I’m sincerely happy to see each and every one of you each day. However, it is not fair to others that get there on time to have to wait for you. The warm up is important and not optional. It makes sure you are prepared to workout and lowers your risk of injury. It is also allows the coaches time to assess your movement that day allowing us to start planning how we may need to adjust the workout for you to get the most out of it. None of us are above practicing any of the movements we encounter in CrossFit. Warm up, work hard in the drills we put you through no matter your experience level, bring it for the workout, cool down as a class, high five and go home knowing you gave your all for that 1 hour!!!

-Nobody should be putting gear away until the last person finishes the workout. Cheer for others, encourage them, and be aware that you cleaning up your stuff can make someone struggling feel not so great.

-Integrity is doing the right thing when you think no one is looking. Count your reps accurately, meet the movement standards, and honestly post your scores. If for instance on chest to bar pull ups, your chest doesn’t hit the bar, they are not chest to bar pull ups and therefore not RX. Be fair to those that are doing the workout and respect their efforts by honestly posting your score. Failing to meet the standards or skipping reps to post a better score than someone is not ok or fair to others that deserve their work to be recognized appropriately.

On a lighter note to end this first blog, we are so proud of all of you and how much improvement we have seen lately. Let’s keep the momentum going and if you love Per Ignem, tell your friends! We’ll give them 50% off their first month, then if they sign up for a full membership after that, you will get a month for free!